or
carelessness in having been made nearly two feet lower in the middle
than at the ends. It should rather have crowned in the middle, which
would have concentrated the overflow, if it should occur, at the ends
instead of in the centre. Had the break begun at the ends the cut of the
water would have been so gradual that little or no harm might have
resulted. Had the dam been cut at the ends when the water began running
over the centre the sudden breaking would have been at least greatly
diminished, possibly prolonged, so that little harm would have resulted.
The crest of the old dam had not been raised in the reconstruction of
1881. The old overflow channel through the rock still remains, but owing
to the sag of the crest in the middle of the dam only five and a half
feet of water in it, instead of seven feet, was necessary to run the
water over the crest.

And the rock spillway, narrow at best, had been further contracted by a
close grating to prevent the escape of fish, capped by a good-sized
timber, and in some slight degree also as a trestle footbridge. The
original discharge pipe indicates that it was made about half earth and
half rock, but if so there was little evidence of it in the broken dam.
The riprapping was merely a skin on each face with more or less loose
spauls mixed with the earth. The dam was seventy-two feet above water,
two to one inside slope, one and a half to one outside slope and twenty
feet wide on top. The rock throughout was about one foot below the
surface. The earth was pretty good material for such a dam, if it was to
be built at all, being of a clayey nature, making good puddle. To this
the fact of it standing intact since 1881 must be ascribed, as no
engineer of standing would have ever tried to so construct it. The fact
that the dam was a reconstructed one after twenty years' abandonment
made it especially hard on the older part of the dam to withstand the
pressure of the water.

Elder Thought it was Safe.

Cyrus Elder, general counsel for the Cambria Iron Company and a wealthy
and prominent citizen of Johnstown, lost a wife and daughter in the
recent disaster and narrowly escaped with his own life.

"When the rebuilding of the dam was begun some years ago," he said, "the
president of the Cambria Iron Company was very seriously concerned about
it, and wished, if possible, to prevent its construction, referring the
matter to the solicitor of the company. A gentleman of high scienti